Looking at six speakers over the course of a two-and-a-half hour thanksgiving dinner, this work analyzes the features that make up their conversational style, and in particular how these styles function in a positive manner when those style are similar to one another, and in a negative way when they are different.

Tannen's classic investigation into how growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic and class backgrounds, even age and personality contribute to different conversational styles. Reissued to coincide with her new book The Argument Culture.